Amazon Kindle Fire is now No. 2 behind the Apple iPad 2 - Deathrace to London Olympics 2012AD

The Apple iPad 2 finally has some real competition. This as the Amazon Kindle Fire, just now only launched September 28^th 2011AD, a good two (2) months prior, is now ranging up behind the Apple iPad 2, just now visible in Apple CEO Tim Cook's rear-view mirror.

Six million (6,000,000) Amazon Kindle Fire-sides strong projected for the Fourth Quarter of 2011AD compared to fifteen million (15,000,000) for the Apple iPad 2 as per the analysis of DisplaySearch in the article “Amazon Kindle Fire shipments upped to 6 million in quarter”, published November 18, 2011 4:09 PM PST by Brooke Crothers, CNET News.

Interstingly, this is a conservative estimate on the part of the analyst Displaysearch: those numbers, which are mre projections, may increase further during the busy Christmas 2011AD shoping period for BOTH rivals.

The words of Rhoda Alexander, IHS senior manager of tablet and monitor research in the article “Amazon Kindle Fire set to take second in 2011 tablet race”, published DECEMBER 2, 2011 BY ANDREW COUTS, DigitalTrends are particularly encouraging fortelling of the Amazon Kindle Fire's potential, quote: “Nearly two years after Apple Inc. rolled out the iPad, a competitor has finally developed an alternative which looks like it might have enough of Apple's secret sauce to succeed”.

To put this in perspective, this makes the Amazon Tablet with is lacklustre specs when compared to the Apple iPad No. 2 oin the Tablet market after only two (2) months, as per the musings of Rob Enderle of DigitalTrends in his opinion piece entited “The Goldilocks Tablet: Why Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire is 'just right'”, published DECEMBER 3, 2011 BY ROB ENDERLE, DigitalTrends.

Suddenly the strange little company that prides itself on being  EMC³ – Earth’s Most Customer Centric Company and bending over backwards with its near stellar customer service doesn't look lie such an ugly duckling anymore. This in a pond dominated mainly by tech-centric companies that sport Tablets with specs galore but no compelling reason to buy what are effectively over-sized touch screen slate computers.

Amazon CEO Jeff  Bezos is definitely not holding back any punches either. Amazon is taking a hit of nearly US$2.70 per Tablet with its price of US$199 just to break into the market against the Apple iPad, as per the analysis of IHS iSuppli as in the article  “Amazon takes a slight loss on each Kindle Fire, study says”, published November 18, 2011 6:15 AM PST by Roger Cheng, CNET News.

A to Z just about begins to describe Amazon's strategy as they may even allow for Grocery shopping from the Amazon Kindle Fire, a concept replicable in Jamaica as opined in my blog article entitled “Amazon intros Grocery shopping via their Kindle Fire - Movado Duh Road from the Couch”.

So at US$199, the price is indeed right, an earlier conclusion of mine in my Geezam blog article entitled “Amazon lights a Kindle Fire as a Gladiator worthy of the Apple iPad” and “Kindle Fire vs Nook Color and Apple iPad 2 – Despite the Specs the Price is Still Right".

That grocery shopping bit may have some credence on the ground as well. Analyst Parkes Associates in the article “Kindle Fire getting shoppers hotter than iPad?”, published November 22, 2011 5:08 PM PST By Eric Mack, CNET News suggest that the Amazon Kindle Fire has its support split along an age divide among two thousand (2000) households interviewed as follows:

• Generation X [ages 28 to 45] age prefer the Amazon Kindle Fire  over the Apple iPad
• Affluent buyers are mainly going after the Apple iPad (like really?)
• 51% favored the Amazon Kindle Fire over the Apple iPad
• 62% of shoppers are most likely to purchase the Apple iPad
• 38% of shoppers are most likely to purchase the Amazon Kindle Fire, placing them firmly in the No. 2 spot

Analyst ChangeWave brings in the noise, BackStreet Boys style in the article “After iPad, Kindle Fire most desired Tablet, study finds”, published November 21, 2011 5:38 AM PST by Don Reisinger, CNET News , with similar very compelling statistics that suggest the same future turnaround trend in the Tablet market:

• 62% of future shoppers plan to buy an Apple iPad
• 22% of future shoppers plan to buy an Amazon Kindle Fire

So not only is the Christmas looking bright for fans of Amazon but you pets have something to look forward too as well. This as Couch Shopping for yourself or your pets thanks to Amazon's September 2010AD  US$550 million acquisition of Quidsi, owners of websites Diaper.com, Soap.com and BeautyBar.com and the launch of efficient robot-operated Pets.com appropriately named Wag.com as per my blog article entitled “Amazon's Wag.com Social Network for Pets - Quidsi in the Flight of the Navigator” is very much possible via the Amazon Kindle Fire.

Amazon's Strategy of tailoring Google Android to suite their online Retail business instead of a generic regurgitation of the Android interface is working and is an admirable concept other Tablet makers can emulate. Specs is not all in a Tablet; it has to have some practical use other than just streaming movies, reading books and playing games.

Tablet makers partnering with Amazon's competing online retailers to offer deep discounts off their Tablets' prices in order to drive sales seems a great point of reference to start.

Especially in light of the misfortune now visited upon RIM, now losing sales on discounted and unsold RIM PlayBook Tablets as per the article “RIM loses half a billion dollars due to unsold and discountedPlayBooks”, published DECEMBER 2, 2011 BY JEFFREY VAN CAMP, DigitalTrends.

Motorola Xoom also fell prey to the same fate in early 2011AD with a dearth of advertising and marketing that was severely out of sync with the Engineering that went into making the product as note in my Geezam blog article entitled “Motorola Xoom - 101 on How to Beat the Apple iPad”.

So Google Android Tablet makers beware!

Curated tailored versions of Google Android married with a online shopping experience seems definitely to be a formula that both Apple and Amazon are using to their advantage. It makes the other Tablet makers appear to just be taking advantage of the furore over these otherwise successful Tablets to sell their own copycat versions with nothing to offer save for great specs and ports missing from the above famous competition.

Suddenly the London 2012 Olympics slate for a July 27^th 2012AD show-stopping launch typical of the British seems like a mere sideshow to the looming face-off between Apple and Amazon. The coming of Christ, as Apple and Amazon appear to be, is now locked in a DeathRace to the finish, each with their own compelling online storefront experiences to entice costumers in a race to the Finish Line.

But what of reports of an Amazon smartphone as per the article “Will Amazon produce a Kindle phone?”, published  October 20, 2011 3:42 PM PDT by David Carnoy, CNET News? Another blog article is in the works as soon as definitive word surfaces of its existence.

In the mean time Apple and Amazon.....Live Long and Prosper.

Alternative Energy Contract for JPS Co Streetlight Upgrade Coming - JPS Co Winsome Callum's Bourne Supremacy

 JPS Co (Jamaica Public Service Company) Corporate Communications Manager Winsome Callum is certainly one chatty lady. After revealing in a Press Release that JPS co was effectively going to be deploying smartmeters, just that some of them were not activated as analyzed in my blog article entitled “JPS Co New Digital Meters are all Smart Meters - Winsome Callum's A Simple Twist of Fate”, she is again in the news.

This time it is for statements related to yet another reason why most Jamaicans still think themselves overcharged, despite the  recommendation of J. Paul Morgan, Head of the JPS Co Review Team as per my blog article entitled “JPS Co cleared on Digital SmartMeters but chastized on 10-year backbilling - Future Plans from the Penguins of Madagascar”.

In the article “Day-Burning Street Lights Costing JPS”, published Sunday November 20, 2011, Gary Spaulding, Senior Staff Reporter, The Jamaica Gleaner, she conceded too that streetlights, whose bill is paid for by the Local Government arm of the Government of Jamaica, are one even in the daytime, wasting taxpayers money, quote: “We get reports every single day about malfunctioning street lights which is why it is difficult to respond to a general statement. There is a response mechanism where once the street lights are reported, they are logged and assigned, but I am not in a position to say what percentage are addressed within a prescribed period”

Clearly aware of the problem but not its scope, her further statements to the Sunday Gleaner are more revealing, quote: “Day-burning lamps indicate a failed/malfunctioning photocell. The photocells control the on/off function and are designed to fail in the "safe mode" that is to stay on, rather than to lose the service of the lamp completely.”

So the photocells need to be fixed. Straightforward GOJ contract to upgrade streetlights photocells and fix and replace bulbs with more efficient Fluorescent or LED (Light Emitting Diode) bulbs, thus necessitating that my article should naturally end here.

But what about the complete solarization of these streetlights, that is to say put them on Alternative Energy power sources, be it Solar Panels or Mini Wind Turbines, meanwhile making money from the excess being sold back to the JPS Co Grid?

Folks, I smell the coming of a HUGE Government of Jamaica contract…….

This as we are now moving towards a new Alternative Energy Paradigm is now possible as Minister Clive Mullings of the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Telecommunications has made changes to the Energy Sector that should see coming of competition as described in my blog article entitled “Ministry of Energy Clive Mullings alters the JPS Co License for Energy Sector Liberalization - Jamaica and The Sun Salutes You”.

Possibly a means by which Google as a FDI (Foreign Direct Investor) or a Local Investor may provide Residential Solar Power to the Government of Jamaica Local Government as per my blog article entitled “Google invests US$75 million in Residential Solar PUC - Aliens in future Energy Market Shakeup”? My fingers are crossed, as an islandwide contract seems very likely here, in this JPS Co Corporate Communications Manager Winsome Callum’s The Bourne Supremacy (2004).

LIME goes FTTH like Verizon's FiOS - Free ADSL after FTTH Mass Adoption

I know I have not been updating my blog of late folks, so please forgive me. I am now gainfully employed as a CSA (Customer Care Associate) at ACS-Xerox working under the Amazon .co.uk Account. So you know who to contact if you want to purchase something from Amazon. So look out for future article making reference to my work at Amazon as well as about any new Services being launched by Amazon.

Seriously though, the news has been rather slow since the my last blog article entitled “Blu-Ray debut of 1TB Storage coming as their popularity ramps up – Denyque Summer Love of Physical Copies”. So I am pleased to announce that Telecom Provider LIME has decided to take my advice as nicely written out in my blog article entitled “LIME look to the future with new Services - Video and Audio Friends with Benefits in the Dead Zone” and go FTTH (Fiber To The Home).

In case that appears to be a mouthful of an acronym, that is basically a fancy pants version of Telecom Provider Verizon’s FiOS service. Effectively Fiber Optic Service to the Home, with speeds capable of 100MBps and scalable in the future up to 1GBps as reported in the article “Confirmed: #LIME launches 100 Mbps 'Fibre to the Home' in Rhyne Park, St. James”, published Friday, November 11, 2011 at 12:30pm by On the Ground News Reports.

LIME Managing Director, Garry Sinclair gets melodramatic, quote: “This technology will revolutionize the in-home internet experience. Our suite of solutions is based on the new, cutting edge Fiber to the Home technology which provides homeowners with improved service, convenience, comfort and security.”

The service will make it debut in the form of an affordable 12MBps service codenamed Ignite priced at a decent JA$2400.00 and scalable up to 100MBps. The initial guinea pigs with be the residents of the upscale communities of Rhyne Park Community in St. James and Morris Meadows community located in St. Catherine.

No surprise there, as who else could afford Fiber Optic to their house that these well heeled individuals. Service goes great with their recent ramp up for Streaming IPTV with Avail-TVN providing the content as described in my blog article entitled “LIME parent CWC partners with Avail-TVN to provide IPTV Streaming Service - War of The Worlds against Netflix”.

Even higher speeds are possible, as Telecom Provider Verizon has demonstrated with a 1TB demo with NEC as per my blog article entitled “Verizon, NEC and the Dawn of the Terabit Age - Audia's FlashDance and Surf's Up”.

Not to mention a house controlled by AI (Artificial Intelligence) while delivering all telecom services over a High Speed Data Service again to draw words from LIME Managing Director, Garry Sinclair, quote: “Our aim is to make homes ‘smarter with fiber’ by using the speed and superior quality provided by this technology to deliver our landline, internet and entertainment products, demonstrating further that LIME is truly for living, everyday”.

So how is Telecom Provider LIME able to make the price so low? Simple really.

They had laid Fiber Optic Cables as far back as 2002AD in a project to interconnect their Landline exchanges which still run on all-digital DMS SuperMode Switches with Fiber Optic so as to replace their ageing Copper Cable Backhaul system. But since then demand for Voice Telecoms services such as Landline and even Mobile has been falling, partly due to the Recession and partly due to shift to Data Services which can do Voice as VoIP and Data simultaneously.

This as evidenced by Telecom Provider LIME having to increase its Rental Fee for Landline and the technology behind how HomeFone XPress, which is my idea from 2003AD, works as noted in my blog article entitled “LIME Landline Rental Increase and HomeFone XPress - The Dead Zone is the Sum of All Fears”. Thus this is the Dead Zone Theory that Telecom Provider LIME used to harass poor little Lindsworth Deer at C&W, then a Network Maintenance Technician (2001 to 2004) as chronicles in my blog article entitled “Telecom Providers and SMS - The Dead Zone”.

So now that Voice Traffic has declined, this leaves lots of spare unused capacity on their Fiber Optic Backhaul. Thus the Engineers, most likely begrudgingly agreeing with the Senior Management, have decided to utilize this spare capacity to provision another service that can provide an equivalent service to that of Coaxial Cable based Triple Play Provider FLOW for comparable prices.

Like I said simple Really.

But it has implications for ADSL service, which may end up being free like my request for SMS, EDGE and GPRS to be free as per my blog article entitled “Telecom Provider LIME and M2M Services - Free SMS and EDGE for the Caribbean to Foster Regional Integration” if FTTH achieves mass adoption, if the prices are good for 100MBps speeds.…..fire to Ignite another article folks on the potential usages of such “free” ADSL!!

Blu-Ray debut of 1TB Storage coming as their popularity ramps up – Denyque Summer Love of Physical Copies

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

S. Butler, Remains (c. 1675)

Sony in collaboration with the Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan have developed a new type of Blu-Ray that can hold up to 1TB of data, a step up from the 25GB limit on the technology as noted in the article “Japanese Working on a Disk 1000 Times Larger Than Blu-Ray”, published MAY 24, 2010 BY RYAN FLEMING, DigitalTrends and the article “Sony’s Blu-Ray Replacement to Store 1TB on a Single Disc”, published JULY 27, 2010 BY RYAN FLEMING, DigitalTrends.

This was a hot summer discovery that went unnoticed due to the then unpopularity of Blu-Ray Discs because of the high price of Blu-Ray Players and disc titles. Curiously, I also did a blog article entitled “Netflix & the Death of Blu-Ray - Rise of the Machines meets Chicken Run” on the predictions of the waning popularity of DVD and Blu-Ray, which I suspected to be false, as people still have a preference for watching movies in a stored format as opposed to streaming via Web TV or IPTV Streaming options such as Netflix.



That blog article drew upon the statistics of analyst NPD which had indicated that 78% of people still watch movies using DVD as stated in the article  “Blu-Ray Discs's New Format: The Old School DVD Discs ”, published Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 6:40 pm By Ed Oswald,The Technologizer. At that time Blu-Ray penetration was also very weak for the aforementioned reasons.

The effect of DVD piracy that is forcing movie studios to go 3D, both in the Developed countries such as the US of A and Developing World countries such as Jamaica is ample proof of the staying power of physical storage media to watch movies as opposed to streaming and the expense of paying for Broadband Internet as stated in my blog article entitled “Palace Amusement and the 3D Movies - Lady Gaga's 3D Mui Mui and Dolche & Gabbana”.

Looks like my analysis in those articles may require a revisit on my part. This as recent statistics released in a report by Digital Entertainment Group indicates that DVD is now on the decline and Blu-Ray sales seeing a significant uptick in popularity during the Third Quarter of 2011AD as stated in the article “Blu-ray software sales finally start accelerating”, published OCTOBER 31, 2011 BY MIKE FLACY, DigitalTrends.

The statistics tell the state of Blu-ray’s rally:

1.      58% increase in Blu-ray sales in the Third Quarter of 2011AD when compared to the same period in 2010AD

2.      52% increase in the number of persons sporting a Blu-Ray player in the Third Quarter of 2011AD when compared to the same period in 2010AD

3.      The total number of Blu-Ray players is thirty three million five hundred thousand (33,500,000)in the Third Quarter of 2011AD

4.      Five million (5,000,000) of HDTV capable television sets sold in the Third Quarter of 2011AD

5.      The total number of HDTV capable television sets stands at seventy million (70,000,000)

Please note Blu-Ray players includes Microsoft  XBox 360 and the Sony  Playstation 3, which are also capable of IPTV and Web TV Streaming as noted in my blog article entitled “Netflix coming to Latin America - Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer”.

Streaming IPTV and Web Tv, if anything, is more to affect Cable Providers and Free-to-Air Broadcasters as noted in my blog article entitled “Cable Providers secretly mull unbundling their cable channels - Google TV has Customers Tangled A La Carte” and the article “LIME parent CWC partners with Avail-TVN to provide IPTV Streaming Service - War of The Worlds against Netflix”.

Physical Storage media, be it Discs or Hard Drives, will still continue to hold their own as originally argued in my blog article entitled “Netflix & the Death of Blu-Ray - Rise of the Machines meets Chicken Run”. Especially as technology advances as noted at the start of this article, point to such Physical storage media having sizes in the 1TB region or larger and viewable without paying for Broadband Internet.

Sony and Tohoku University in Japan are betting big on developing increased storage capacity based around cheaply available Titanium Oxide to make higher density Blu-Rays and Lasers that work at higher frequencies to read these higher density discs at faster speeds. No doubt such Super Blu-Ray players will have faster DSP (Digital Signal Processing) Processors.

Possibly too, using the ScOC (Super Computer on a Chip) that are the expected results of the IMB-3M collaboration to develop the adhesive to make this possible by 2013AD as predicted in my blog article entitled “IBM and 3M to develope adhesive for Iso-Linear Processor - Rihanna's Umbrella for Intel's SuperComputer on a Chip”.

So the rise in the popularity of 25GB capable Blu-Ray and the wane of4GB capable DVD is not surprising, even in a Recession. This kind of spending was last observed pre-Recession in 2008AD and may indicate people spending to enjoy themselves more at home and sit out what increasingly is appearing to be a protracted Recession or even a Double Dip Recession, Denyque Summer Love Style.

This is if the EU Deal as recorded faithfully in my blog article entitled “EU Debt Deal Reached on Wednesday October 27 2011 - Austerity measures for sustained Recovery” falls through and fails to get the backing of the People’s Republic of China.